


A Roar Like Thunder

by SallyExactly



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Gen, History, Hugs all around, Mission Fic, Sort Of, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 09:29:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18688747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SallyExactly/pseuds/SallyExactly
Summary: When Rittenhouse tries to destroy one of the legal precedents that shaped modern life, the team must balance saving lives with saving history. Will they get it right before it's too late?





	A Roar Like Thunder

**Author's Note:**

> TW: violence, historical racism

Rufus walked around the corner and saw Jiya grooving.

He wasn't sure what to. She had earbuds in. But he stopped and smiled at the sight of her, in that bright yellow sweater she loved, hips wiggling as she danced backwards across the floor, her back mostly towards him. She looked _happy_. And she didn't…

She didn't get to look like that very much any more.

_Of course_ Rittenhouse, dicks that they were, jumped just then.

But Jiya apparently had the music up loud enough not to notice, and leaned to her left, wiggling her hands in the air. She smiled. Rufus laughed softly, just happy to watch her—

Movement out of the corner of his eye. Flynn, the first to respond to the alarm. Before Rufus could think about what he was doing, before Flynn could speak, Rufus glared at him, because Jiya was enjoying herself, and, scary murder dude or not, if Flynn made fun of her…

Flynn made an exaggerated  _oh-please_ face, and pointedly looked away from her. "You're not gonna warn her she has an audience?"

Jiya jumped, and whirled, ripping her earbuds out. She saw them both— looked self-conscious— glared— Flynn raised his eyebrows and pointed to the flashing lights as explanation.

"I didn't know anyone was watching," Jiya said, with strong undertones of  _do I need to kill you in your sleep?_

"Just for a second." Rufus went forward and kissed her hair. "You looked like you were having fun."

Jiya grumbled, with lingering undertones of  _I'm still not convinced I don't need to kill you in your sleep_ .

"C'mon, let's see where the bastards are this time," he added.

"Boston, January 15 th , 1919," Jiya read, as the others arrived on the scene.

"… Prohibition?" Rufus guessed. That was 1919, right?

"Oh no," Lucy said. She looked horrified. "It's not Prohibition."

Rufus exchanged looks with Wyatt. "So… what is it?"

"Oh God." Lucy ran her hand through her hair. "It's the Great Molasses Spill."

"The… what?" Rufus said. The name seemed to mean something to Flynn, who stopped looking puzzled and raised his eyebrows, but the rest of them looked equally in the dark.

"Did you say  _molasses?_ " Wyatt added.

"Lucy, we're on the clock," Agent Christopher said.

"Right," Lucy said. "Okay, short version. The United States Industrial Alcohol Company owned a giant molasses tank in the North End, to feed one of their distilleries. It held upwards of two million  _gallons_ . It was really poorly built, and when people told its owners it leaked  _all the time_ , they just painted it brown."

"Gotta love early 20 th century safety standards," Rufus muttered.

"Well, that's the point, actually. One day they added some hot molasses, and then a few days later the temperature went up by like forty degrees, and—"

"Oh no," Rufus said.

Lucy nodded. "And the tank ruptured under the pressure. The wave was taller than a two-story building. It killed twenty-one people and caused a  _huge_ swath of destruction."

"They just… drowned in molasses?" Jiya said.

"Some were crushed by buildings coming down or by pieces of the tank. Some suffocated. As the day went on, as the temperature dropped, the molasses… hardened."

There was a horrified silence as they all pictured that.

"That's awful, of course, but what does Rittenhouse want with it?" Connor asked.

"Yeah. Well, afterwards, locals brought one of the first class-action lawsuits in Massachusetts against the owners. Dorr v. USIA. When the company was found negligent, and settled, it set the foundation for modern corporate regulations."

"So no molasses spill…" Jiya began.

"… big companies are free to be even bigger dicks than they already are?" Rufus guessed.

"It makes sense," Connor admitted. "We know Rittenhouse is full of corporate lawyers. Take away this precedent and they can work more freely."

"Right, but that means Rittenhouse is trying to  _stop the spill_ ," Lucy said. "If we stop  _them_ … twenty-one people are still going to die. If we don't… we might come back to a timeline where they already won."

"So, basically, they're pulling a Flynn," Wyatt said. "Making us choose between saving people and preserving history."

Flynn looked unrepentant.

"The, uh, lawsuit," Jiya said. "Did it focus mostly on the damage or the deaths?"

"Both," Lucy said. "The area was devastated. People brought lawsuits because they'd lost family, but also because their property was destroyed."

"So what if you get the people out of the way? Does the judge still rule the same way?"

"It's hard to know," Lucy admitted after a minute. "The judge— the auditor— was Lieutenant Colonel Hugh Ogden, and technically it was just an advisory opinion, but in reality, he decided the whole thing. He was a… conservative man, and a lot of people expected him to rule for USIA."

"Well, we have to try," Wyatt said firmly. "To save history  _and_ those people."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, Lucy," Flynn said, "but this was one of the most densely populated parts of Boston."

Lucy nodded. "The judge cited that in his ruling."

"What's your point?" Wyatt demanded.

"I'm saying it's gonna be pretty  _difficult_ to evacuate the entire North End in the middle of the day without Rittenhouse noticing."

"We're trying anyway," Wyatt snapped. "Because that's what we do, and if you don't like it? You can leave."

"Enough," Agent Christopher said firmly. "You're going, you're stopping Rittenhouse, and you're leaving now. Get moving."

#

The North End in 1919 was unfamiliar — bustling— Italian— but one part of it was also deeply familiar: the unfriendly stares.

_Seen one place with a problem with Black folks,_ Rufus thought darkly,  _seen 'em all_ .

"So, if this tank is so unstable, how does Rittenhouse keep it from exploding?" Wyatt asked.

Lucy looked sideways at him. "Rufus? You're the engineer."

Yeah, but not the subject matter expert. He thought through what little Lucy had told them. "Uh, pose as safety inspectors, try to drain some of the molasses off before it's too late?"

"Pose as workers from the company," Flynn suggested. For a change, he didn't look actively murderous. He was watching the scenery. Rufus wasn't overjoyed he'd come along, but if they really were trying to save everyone, they needed as many people as the Lifeboat could carry.

"So, even if it does explode, they can use that as evidence against the negligence charge," Flynn added.

Lucy gave Flynn a thoughtful look.

"Okay. Then we know where they're gonna be," Wyatt said. "Flynn, you and I are going to head there and stop them. Lucy, Rufus, you start getting people out."

Rufus looked from the bustling neighborhood, full of the sounds of people calling to each other in Italian, back to Wyatt. "Uh,  _how?_ I mean, where are we going to put them?"

"Think of something, Rufus! You got us out of the Alamo, you can work this out."

Lucy pointedly side-eyed Wyatt.

"You and Lucy," Wyatt amended. "Lucy, when exactly does the tank explode?"

"Uh, around 12:30."

"Great. So we have an hour. Flynn, you coming or not?"

"Whatever you say, Master Sergeant." Flynn quickly caught up to, and then passed, Wyatt.

Rufus watched them go. "Are we one hundred percent sure that they didn't pair off just to kill each other?" he asked quietly.

Not that  _he_ was clamoring to be partnered with Flynn, or anything.

Lucy gave him a sardonic look and noticeably didn't disagree. "C'mon. A lot of the fatalities were laborers having lunch near the tank. If we can get them out of the way, we can—" Her voice wavered. "We can at least save a few people."

"So, we're following Wyatt and Flynn?"

"Pretty much. But we'll be less conspicuous in pairs."

Rufus watched their surroundings, and tried to imagine the damage a two-story wave of molasses would cause. "You said it hardened and killed people?"

She nodded.

"How'd they clean it up?"

"They blasted saltwater off a fireboat, and then used sand to soak it up. It takes them a while to figure that out, though."

He thought about that until something else got his attention. "So, I'm guessing that's not an Avengers fan who's a hundred years ahead of their time?" He nodded to the graffiti in the alley up ahead, a capital A in a circle.

Lucy looked at him blankly. "A what?"

"Never mind."

"That's the symbol for—" Her face changed. "Oh no." She started to run towards the tank that loomed over the neighborhood.

Or, run as much as a woman in heeled boots could, which meant Rufus could easily catch up to her. "What? What is that thing?"

"It's the symbol for anarchy," she panted. "The company who owned the tank tried to blame anarchists for blowing it up, but there was no evidence of that. Rittenhouse doesn't have to stop the explosion. They just have to plant evidence of anarchists. I can't believe I didn't think of this before." She swerved around a corner. "Now we have to evacuate the area  _and_ stop Rittenhouse from blowing up the tank."

"Wait, were anarchists actually a thing then?"

They had to slow to a walk and hug the buildings to let a team and wagon through. "Definitely. This area was a hotbed of the anarchist movement. That was one of the things that led to so much prejudice against Italian immigrants."

He shook his head. "I will never get over the number of ways people find to be dicks to each other."

"If Rittenhouse pulls this off? Not only do they tilt the ruling in USIA's favor, they also make the whole political and social climate a  _lot_ worse."

Ugh. Right, so, anarchists: a thing. Rittenhouse wasn't trying to stop the explosion at all, they were trying to plant evidence to help the company escape liability. Wyatt and Flynn were smart enough to figure that out, right?

… Flynn. Tall, armed, hostile, obvious eastern European accent. Had the subtlety of a mariachi band, the concern for collateral damage of a nuclear warhead, and the social skills of a rabid hedgehog.

Rufus started to run again.

"C'mon, we can cut through this alley," Lucy panted. Rufus followed hot on her heels—

Strong arms grabbed him from behind. "Keep the pilot alive," someone grunted.

Rufus jammed his elbow straight back and was viciously satisfied to connect. Ahead, a huge man grabbed Lucy— she spun and socked him in the groin—

A hand clamped down on Rufus's mouth. He didn't bother screaming. The guy going for Lucy was white, ten to one the rest were too— which meant, in 1919 Boston, screaming for help would only land Rufus in worse trouble.

Lucy's attacker hauled her off her feet, and then Rufus couldn't see any more as he smashed his head backwards. He grunted with the effort of freeing himself and felt the old shame, always—  _why aren't you better at this, why can't you stand up for yourself_ — and then  _anger_ that, despite everything he could do and  _had_ done, it still came down to fistfights in back alleys.

That was a stupid thought he had no time for. He finally got enough wiggle room to turn, and went straight for the goon's eyes as he'd seen Wyatt show Jiya once. The man flinched—

"Rufus, run!" Lucy shrieked. Rufus risked a glance over his shoulder and saw she was definitely losing her fight, with two more men coming up behind— but—  _keep the pilot alive_ — they hadn't said anything about  _Lucy_ —

He couldn't  _abandon_ her— 

But if he died here— the rest of them were stuck, and Rittenhouse could pick up the Lifeboat whenever they wanted.

So he ran.

Footsteps pounded behind him. Wyatt, find Wyatt. Oh, God, what were they doing to Lucy? If they killed her— he didn't hear any shots, but there were other ways—

He turned a corner and slammed into something hard. His jolt of adrenaline told him who it was even as Flynn pushed him to the side. Two Rittengoons careened around the corner after him, guns out—

Flynn grabbed the first one, slugged him, and threw him into the second as that one fired. The hapless meat shield muffled the sound of the shot, fell to the ground, and died. By the time the second guy recovered—

Rufus's eyes widened at the brutal efficiency with which Flynn snapped his neck. Jesus.

Flynn dropped the body and turned back to Rufus. "Where's Lucy?" he snapped.

Rufus pointed. "Rittenhouse—"

And Flynn was gone.

Rufus stopped to grab a gun from one of the dead guys. The thought of using it to protect his friends didn't even make him flinch any more, but he didn't have time to think about that.

Then he sprinted for the alley he'd just left—

Flynn slammed into the remaining Rittengoons like a human bowling ball. Rufus tried to find a shot, but everything was a blur of dudes in dark suits hitting each other. Lucy—

Rufus saw her at the same moment as Flynn literally picked her up and threw her clear of the fight. Rufus ran forward and grabbed her as she wobbled, steadying her, and pushed her behind him. She made a frustrated noise, but Rufus had a gun and she didn't.

And then the alley was littered with dead and dying men, and Flynn looked up from searching the bodies like it was just another day at the office.

Rufus's brain caught up with him. He looked around, and glanced around the corner. "Where's Wyatt?"

"He's back at the tank." Flynn went through the pockets of one of the dead men with the unsettling efficiency of long practice.

"He'd better be," Rufus muttered, "or I hope you like 1919."

Lucy looked at him, a little surprised, and Rufus felt oddly ashamed. Flynn  _had_ just saved his and Lucy's lives.

… but not that ashamed. C'mon. Did any of them believe the thought of killing Wyatt had never even _occurred_ to Flynn?

"Also, thanks," Rufus sighed.

Neither his jibe or his thanks seemed to register with Flynn. "They're not trying to stop the spill," Flynn said. "They're trying—"

"— to dynamite the tank and blame anarchists," Lucy said. "We were just on our way to warn you."

Flynn's sardonic look showed what he thought of their timing.

"Hang on, if Rittenhouse is trying to blow up the tank, what are you doing here?" Rufus demanded.

"We need Lucy. Neither Wyatt or I know enough about Rittenhouse's long game here."

"Tank goes boom, people and corporate regulations die."

"Let's go," Lucy interrupted before Flynn could retort. "I'll go with Flynn and find Wyatt. Rufus, you head for the city paving yard. There's a lot of men there for the noon break. Tell them and the firefighters that there's been an accident down Hanover Street and they need every man they can get."

Rufus glanced at Flynn, not trying to second-guess Lucy, but still not used to her actively trying to change history.

Lucy noticed. "Look, they're going to die horribly," she defended herself. "And if you get them out of there, that's more hands to help rescue people… afterwards."

"Hey, no argument from me."

He went his own way to reduce the number of people who might see them together and then inconveniently testify about it later. "Hey!" he called, skidding to a stop in the paving yard about ten minutes later. "Uh, excuse me. There's been a big accident down on Hanover Street! They, uh, need every man they can get!"

The yard was full of white people, and they all looked at him dubiously.

A few of them got to their feet, but he didn't exactly get a wave of people rushing for the exits, so he added, "Two teams collided and the wagons, uh, hit a house! There are kids trapped under the rubble!"

That got people moving a bit faster. "Where?" demanded a rough-looking laborer, who didn't seem thrilled to have Rufus standing so close to him.

"I'll take you there."

So Rufus ended up running down the street with a bunch of not-too-pleased white people on his heels, which was, in general, a situation he tried to avoid. He nearly made a wrong turn, which would've blown it right from the beginning, but the huge tank looming over the tracks let him know which way to go.

"How far is it, anyway?" the same big guy wanted to know, as they turned down Hanover. Which was, you know, pretty obviously free of screaming.

"He— he didn't say, he just said there was a crash on Hanover and to bring every man I could find."

"Who said?"

"There's dust in the air up ahead. It must be down there!"

He got them another two blocks before they mutinied.

"Hey," the big guy demanded, adding an epithet, "what's your game? The hell you bring us all the way out here, for?"

Three others came up behind him, looking equally pissed. "Noon's the only break we get," said one of them. "And we've just wasted it."

"You think this is funny, making us run around like this?" another growled.

_Ohshitohshitohshit_ . Fear twisted deep in Rufus's stomach, but… but that was familiar, these days.

"Look." He raised his hands. "Some guy ran up to me and told me there was a wagon crash down Hanover, and I should bring all the men I could find. He told me exactly what I told you. He said there were  _kids_ trapped."

Some of the others started to disperse, grumbling, with resentful glances at Rufus. If they went back, they'd—

"Oh, yeah? What'd this  _guy_ look like?" And then some of the others clearly intended to make trouble. Yet another guy stepped forward, rolling up his sleeves.

His teammates didn't  _get_ these things. Not really. Even Lucy-the-historian. She knew all about how the past sucked for people who looked like him, but she didn't really  _know_ it. It was academic to her. Not a matter of survival.  _Distract the cop, Rufus. Lure these men out of the firehouse, Rufus. Try not to be murdered by racists, Rufus_ .

"Tall," Rufus said promptly, then realized if he described Flynn exactly, that could be trouble. So he made an amalgamation of all his teammates. "White guy. Sandy hair, blue eyes. Deep voice, walked with a limp."

"Oh yeah?"

The  _rat-a-tat-tat_ sounded exactly like a machine gun. Rufus nearly dove for cover. Then came a shriek he recognized instantly as the sound of stressed metal. The ground shook, and a loud  _roar_ wiped out all other noise.

After a second of collective shock, the men turned and began to run back the way they'd all come. Were they running directly into death? Rufus followed, knowing he couldn't stop them if they were— he'd barely gotten away with this as it was—

A huge dark mass, higher than a person, crashed across the end of the street and kept going out of sight.

_What the— What— THE FUCK_ —

Lucy hadn't mentioned that it traveled as fast as a car. She hadn't mentioned the screaming, or the crash of collapsing buildings.

They'd all skidded to a stop. Rufus heard swearing. The molasses flowed up the street towards them. Were they safe here?

"It's the tank," one of the men who'd confronted Rufus muttered. "That God damned molasses tank."

"Gonna be a mess," another bit out, and they kept going.

Rufus stepped into the molasses a block from Commercial Street and immediately regretted it when it nearly sucked his shoe off. The other men were in the same plight. Rufus grimly yanked his foot free and kept going. Had they succeeded? Or had Rittenhouse detonated the tank? Or shot it?

They reached the end of the street—

Everyone stopped, and stared. One man crossed himself. Another took off his hat. "Holy Mother of God," a third whispered.

Total devastation. Piles of rubble barely recognizable as former buildings were covered in brown-black molasses. The wave had ripped some buildings off their foundations entirely, and smashed cars into those buildings that had survived. Orienteering wasn't exactly Rufus's strong suit, but even he could see how much the immediate landmarks had changed in, like, ten minutes.

And in the molasses…

Oh, God.

Things were moving. Struggling.  _People_ , but stuck, and so covered in goop that they looked like monsters from really low-grade horror films.

Rufus tried to run toward the nearest one, which really meant trudging toward the nearest one. He nearly went face-first into the murderous goo when he stepped into a hole in the street, but he managed to keep his balance, and reach the… man? woman? Gallifreyan? Absolutely no way of telling under all that.

The— man, probably, 'cause pants— was clawing at his face. Rufus crouched, grabbed his shoulder, and started to heave him up. But the man's legs, Rufus realized, were trapped under a pile of debris.

Awful choking noises told him that really wasn't the priority. Shit. Oh, shit. 'What to do if someone is drowning in molasses' had absolutely, positively never ever been covered in any first aid class he'd ever taken, ever. He needed  _water_ —

But he didn't have any, and the guy couldn't breathe  _now_ . Rufus wiped at his nose, and the molasses felt  _awful_ , but even worse was the way it had fucking hardened around the guy's nostrils, Jesus. Finally he got enough of it off that the poor dude was obviously breathing again. "Hey," Rufus said. "Hey, let's get you up, okay?" He shoved the wood, or whatever, off the guy's legs— and cut his hand in the process, but that was okay, because he'd had to get a tetanus shot after Flynn had stranded them in 1754, and those things lasted like five years.

He gave the guy a hand. The man scrambled up, so unsteady on his feet he nearly toppled face first into the molasses again. He pawed at his eyes and finally blinked blearily at Rufus. "What happened?"

_Really? There's a two million gallon molasses tank in this neighborhood, you find yourself covered in molasses, and you have to ask_ what happened?

The man looked around, and what little of his face Rufus could see under its brown coating went from pained to solemn. "You saved my life," he added. "Thank you."

Rufus just narrowly stopped himself from saying  _no problem, man_ . He settled for a nod— down, not up. Then looked around and found that most of the rest of the guys from the paving yard had clustered around a big pile of debris.

He stopped to help a woman up. As soon as she cleared enough molasses out of her eyes to see him, she gave him an indignant look, and wrenched her elbow ostentatiously out of his hand.

White people.

He just walked away. The guys from the paving yard looked grim as they hauled boards off of the sticky pile, but it looked like half a building had come down. Then Rufus heard the crying from under the pile and froze. What if— what if it had been Kevin under there—

His hands were shaking.

The terror curled in his stomach and tried to paralyze him, but that was a tactical error. It just made him mad. He forced himself to take another step forward, and another, and then he could think straight again. He stared at the pile until he found what he wanted: a long, thick piece of lumber that stuck out high and looked like it ran a ways under the rest of the debris.

He crouched and tried to squint through the pile. Where was the kid? Was she the only one under there? If he did this wrong—

But if he didn't do anything.

The wood splintered against his palms as he shoved it further into the pile. The debris fought him, and he nearly lost his footing in the sticky mess before he got the beam where he wanted it. He grabbed the heaviest piece of wood he could find and rammed it against the beam, then the next and the next, until the end of the beam rested high in the air against a not entirely unstable stack of rubble.

"The hell are you doing, boy?" one of the laborers called, as the pile shifted. "Cut it out!"

"I really," Rufus grunted, hauling down on the beam, "wish…"

The pile shifted.

The wood bit deeply into his palms. His arms and his back ached.

"You all," he grunted again, pulling down with all his strength. The load shifted a few more inches, but not enough for them to reach the kid.

Aware that he was gonna look really,  _really_ stupid in a minute, if his hastily constructed lever wasn't up to this, he drew his feet up and let his body weight hang from the beam.

"Would," he panted, as the debris pile groaned and creaked. "Stop. Calling. Me.  _Boy_ ."

"I see what he's doing," one of the guys muttered, and came over to lend his own considerable weight. Together, they levered a whole bunch of shit off one part of the pile. Two other guys reached down into the dark hole now revealed, and pulled out a grimy, battered-looking, big-eyed kid.

Suddenly the whole top of the pile shifted. With the load suddenly much less, Rufus and the other guy landed on their ass in molasses.

Rufus bit back a groan. But the other guy struggled to his feet and then, surprisingly, offered Rufus his hand. Rufus eyed him, then took it and accepted the help up.

"Peter," the guy said.

"Thanks. Rufus."

"That was clever," Peter said. "Not bad for—"

Rufus knew he shouldn't, he  _knew_ what kind of trouble it could land him in, but he couldn't stop himself from giving Peter a scorching look.

"— a young guy."

… oh. Okay. Peter was old enough to be his dad. Plus Rufus probably looked a hell of a lot younger than someone his own age would who'd worked in the yards all his life.

"Thanks," Rufus muttered, and decided not to wonder if that was what Peter had intended to say  _before_ Rufus's glare.

He flinched at the first shot. Shit— Rittenhouse— was this Wyatt, or—

Peter looked up the street. "They're shootin' the horses," he said quietly.

"They're what?"

"City stables're just up there." He pointed. "Looks like a lot of horses struggling in this damn muck. Cops're putting 'em down."

God, every time Rufus thought this couldn't get  _worse_ .

"You a soldier?" Peter added.

Rufus thought rather crossly of how that flinch would've looked. "No." Wait, should he have said yes? How many men his age were running around here who  _weren't_ veterans? Too late now, and he didn't have Lucy to get him out of this. "I'm an engineer. My, uh… there's a lot of shooting, out west where I'm from."

Peter seemed to accept that at face value. "An engineer? You ever see our tank before?"

Rufus took the chance to do a little influencing of history. "No, but I heard about it. Heard it leaked all the time. Must've been pretty cheap construction."

Peter eyed him. "You sure marched us out of the paving yard just in time. Did you know?"

_Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!_ Damn it, and he'd just been patting himself on the back for his subtle shaping of the narrative. "Are you kidding me?" he demanded. "If I'd known something was  _that_ wrong with the tank, I wouldn't've been anywhere near the damn thing."

Peter looked obscurely disappointed. "There's more people trapped," he said after a minute. "Maybe you can use your lever trick again."

But Rufus was staring up the street. Firefighters had arrived, and they were trying to hose down the goo. Even from here, he could tell it wasn't working very well.

"Hey, where're you going?" Peter called after him.

Geez, Rufus was never going to be able to use that expression about a herd of turtles stampeding through molasses again. Slogging— through this stuff was  _awful_ . "To tell them to use saltwater!" he yelled over his shoulder.

When he turned forward again, four men were coming toward him carrying someone on a stretcher. The men looked somber. Rufus glanced down at the stretcher—

Oh God. Oh God. That guy… definitely wasn't gonna make it.

Rufus got out of their way by stepping into what had once been an alley before one of the buildings had been swept away. He tensed at movement in his peripheral vision—

"Hey," Wyatt said. He didn't lead with, "have you seen Lucy," which was reassuring, it suggested Lucy and Flynn had found him.

He was also wearing a lot less molasses than Rufus was. Rufus tried to let that go.

"What happened?" Rufus demanded, looking around to make sure no one was close enough to overhear. "Did they— get to it? Or did it happen like…" He glanced around again, and couldn't bring himself to say 'it was supposed to.'

"Like it did before," he finished. "It sounded like they used a machine gun."

Wyatt shook his head. "Lucy said that was the rivets flying off. They didn't get close enough. But they still could've planted evidence—"

Gunshots. Wyatt shoved Rufus back against the one standing building and reached into his jacket.

"They're shooting the horses," Rufus told him. "Apparently the molasses took out the city stables, and they can't get them out, so—"

"Not with a semi-automatic, they're not."

Oh.

More shots. Wyatt tilted his head and frowned. "Flynn's gun," he muttered.

Well, that was what they'd brought the guy for, right? But the last time Rufus had seen Lucy, she'd been with Flynn.

More shots, and then they stopped. Hopefully Flynn had hunted down and killed all the Rittenhouse agents? And not…

If Flynn dropped dead in front of him, Rufus honestly would not be that upset. He still remembered the pain and terror of those moments in Chicago. He still remembered being operated on  _without anesthetic_ . In a  _warehouse_ .

But all the psychotic energy Flynn had previously put towards stopping them, he was now using to fight Rittenhouse. And that was a good thing.

"Hey!" Lucy came up on Rufus's other side. "Where's Flynn?"

Rufus jumped. He was a little satisfied that Wyatt did, too. "Uh, last time I saw him, he was with you."

She shook her head. She, too, was covered in a lot less molasses than Rufus was, not that he was comparing, or anything. "We got separated. I tried to get to the Haymarket Relief Station, but I came back when I heard the shots."

"Don't worry," Rufus said. "Pretty sure Murder Man can take care of himself."

Lucy wasn't amused, but Rufus hadn't been amused in that warehouse in Oakland, so, yeah.

"Shooting's stopped," Wyatt said.

"We can't leave yet," Lucy said. "We have to make sure Rittenhouse didn't plant any evidence."

"What kind of evidence?" Wyatt asked.

"Anarchist fliers? Bomb parts? Or maybe they bribed a witness…" She looked around, maybe realizing, as Rufus was, just how little it would take to bribe one of these people who'd just lost everything.

"Plus we, you know, have people to fish out of molasses," Rufus pointed out.

"Okay," Lucy said. "Rufus, you go with Wyatt, I'll talk to some of the locals—"

"No," Rufus and Wyatt chorused together.

" _You_ go with Wyatt," Rufus said. "Emma's gunning for you, and it's personal. Last time, she… wanted to take me alive."

Lucy gave him a  _long_ look that reminded him uncomfortably of the fact that she  _knew_ what it was like to be taken alive by Rittenhouse.

"You know the historic stuff better than we do," Rufus added. "You can figure out where Rittenhouse is most likely to try to plant evidence, and you and Wyatt can stop them. Besides, I know where I'm going."

"Where?"

"That's a fire boat out there. It should have pumps, right?"

Lucy nodded.

"And it's already sitting in the middle of the river. Bay. Whatever."

"All right," Wyatt said after a minute. "Be careful, all right?"

"Sure. No pulling a you."

Wyatt gave him a dirty look. "We'll meet back at the Lifeboat at dark."

"And hopefully Flynn will find his way," Lucy added.

"Sure," Wyatt muttered.

They split up. Rufus headed up the street— slowly. Being with the other two had distracted him, briefly, from the horror, but it was like something out of a horror  _movie._ Except worse, because the figures writhing under the molasses weren't extras.

He stopped twice to help dig someone out. The second man, they got out in time.

Rufus didn't think he would ever get the look frozen on the first man's face.

Finally he reached where the firefighters were trying to hose down the molasses. Saying it wasn't working was like saying "The Phantom Menace" was a little underwhelming.

"Um, excuse me," he called.

One of the firefighters glanced his way and then away.

God  _damn_ it. He was so tired of this.

In the present, when it happened, it prompted a kind of paranoia.  _Is it because I'm a Black man this time? What about this time? And this one? Am I overreacting?_ In the past… in the past, it was pretty damn obvious.

Lucy had to deal with it, too, but it was different. The likelihood that someone  _besides_ Rittenhouse was going to summarily haul her off and kill her was a lot lower, and while he might know intellectually that 1919 Boston wasn't exactly a hotbed of lynching…

It still fucking sucked.

But it wasn't new, and he had a job to do.

"Excuse me," he called again, putting a little volume and a little steel into his voice. "That's not gonna work. You need to use salt water."

"Who the hell are you?" demanded the nearest fireman.

"I'm an engineer from MIT." Technically true, although it could get him into a lot of trouble.

The man gave Rufus a skeptical look. "Yeah? And I'm the king of England."

Another man snickered.

Rufus kept a lid on his temper. It was easy, because he'd known from a very young age that being the Angry Black Man could get him killed. He didn't have the latitude to be publicly pissed off that someone like Wyatt did. He always had to remember that.

"There are people out there dying in the molasses," Rufus said, voice low and tight. "The water you're pumping isn't helping. Salt water  _will_ ."

The fireman turned to look at him. "Listen,  _Mister MIT Engineer_ , I don't know who you think you are or why you're here, but if you really give a damn about those people out there, then get to our fire boat and fix its pump. 'cause it ain't workin' either, and our engineer is somewhere out there under all  _that_ ." His voice was suddenly rough.

Rufus wondered if the engineer was one of the firefighters he'd led out of the yard, but it didn't matter right now. "Where's your boat?"

The man pointed.

Rufus fought his way through the hardening molasses in the direction the man had indicated. There were more people now than there had been a while ago. Firefighters, sailors, a bunch of people he couldn't identify from how they were dressed. He saw the boat and slogged across the street, skirting a dead? horse. Oh, God, he hoped it was dead.

The destruction was even worse here, closer to the tank. Besides all the crushed wood that must've been buildings, he could see the mangled remains of an elevated train track. What the hell. City infrastructure literally leveled by  _molasses_ . 

If all history was this bizarre, Rufus could kind of see why Lucy found it so fascinating.

The fire boat, when he reached it, looked deserted. Had everyone else left when their equipment failed? He really didn't want to get arrested for trespassing…

But people were dying out there. He'd have to hope any cops were too busy saving people to gratuitously screw with a Black guy.

He nearly slid into the harbor before he scrambled across the gap to the boat. Immediately, he heard someone coming: "Hey! What're you doing here?" A grizzled old white guy came out from behind the pilot hut thingy.

"I'm an engineer. I ran into your crew and they said your pump was broken." Looking around, he saw at least three nozzles. Which one was busted, and why weren't they using the others?

"I want to help," he added. "Which pump?"

The old guy pointed— to the steam engine. Oh, that made a lot more sense. Unfortunately. In this decade the pumps would be powered by steam, probably generated by coal— yep, there was a coal bin on the deck— and if you wanted to be efficient, you'd run all three pumps from the same steam engine.

"Your whole system is down? You can't move at all?"

"Naw, we can move."

Great. So it was something about the connection between the steam engine and the pumps. But close to the engine, if  _none_ of the pumps were working.

He looked around, then grabbed the heavy gloves used to service the steam engine. The old man gave him the stink-eye.

He poked around by the steam engine, then went to examine the pumps. The problem was somewhere between here and there—

Another gunshot rang out, a few blocks away. He winced, kept his head down, and hoped it was just a horse.

_God_ , they lived weird lives.

The connecting pipes disappeared under the deck. He looked around and found the dark hole leading below. He scrambled down the rickety ladder and had to duck his head to not hit it on the edge of the hatch. Geez, good thing he wasn't claustrophobic like Lucy.

His shoes squelched ominously in the bottom of the boat, and he heard waves lapping against the hull. He focused on what he wanted, which was in the ceiling, and tried to ignore the possibility that the boat was leaking. He stripped off one glove and held his fingers an inch or so from what should be the connecting pipe. Yes: still hot here. Then it split two ways, and one branch split immediately after— one connector going to each pump, then. Within a few inches those were cold.

Some  _light_ would be helpful, but he had to make do with squinting at the Y connectors. Once he listened hard, he could hear the quiet hissing of escaping steam over the splashing of the water. Great, so, all he had to do was fix some busted pipes, that were too hot to touch, in the dark, with no forge or anything.

Oh, it got even better. Farther down one of the lines were some rags wrapped around one of the pipes, suggesting… someone had already tried to fix it, haphazardly? There was  _another_ leak? Geez. Well. One problem at a time, right?

Although if you were quoting a dude who'd jumped out of a plane without a parachute, maybe things weren't going super well for you.

Focus. Had to be close to the connector. Or maybe…

Yep. That first Y connector was colder than it should have been. Simplest explanation, it  _was_ the connector.

He looked around for a hammer. The closest he could find was a loose piece of wood. He took a good, two-handed grip on it and started whacking the connector towards the ceiling.

"What're ya doing?!" the old man yelled.

" _Fixing_ your  _boat!_ "  _What do you think I'm doing, drilling holes beneath the waterline?_ Rufus took a deep breath, readjusted his grip, and started again.

The obvious problem with this approach was that the pipe was made out of metal, and the wood was made out of… yeah. But he kept going. When he stopped again and listened carefully, he was rewarded with the sound of… quiet. Sort of. The hissing steam was farther off now.

He pulled off the glove, reached up, and felt the air near the pipe going to the second Y connector: yep, it was heating up. He followed it up through the second connector, sloshing through the disconcerting standing water that was already numbing his toes, then checked each branch individually until they disappeared above the ceiling again. Deck.  _Whatever_ .

On the other pipe, he could hear the steam escaping right where someone had wrapped the rag around it. Unless he could patch it, that would drop the pressure in the whole system. But maybe this was good enough. He raced up the ladder.

He stripped off the gloves and tried one of the bow pumps. It made promising spitting noises— and then, as he aimed off the front of the boat, produced a trickle of water. He kept pumping, hoping it would get better, but it didn't. The other pump did the same thing. Damn it, there was still too much steam escaping through that breach.

He turned to the old man, who was watching him with interest now rather than skepticism. Sticking out of his jacket pocket was a flashlight, a big bulky thing probably twice the size and half the brightness of its 2018 equivalent. "Could I please borrow that flashlight?"

He always had to be polite, careful, conciliatory. In the past— hell, in the present too— he could never get away with demanding things like Wyatt did.

The man handed over the flashlight, and Rufus rushed back downstairs. He carefully unwrapped the rags from around the pipe. The hole wasn't big, he just needed  _something_ to fix it with…

The engineer had to have tools around here somewhere. Rufus poked around until he found an open cabinet, and came up with a C-clamp and some rubber. He found scrap wood in another corner, and rigged up something to keep pressure on the little pin hole.

He raced for the ladder, stuck his head above the deck, and froze. Standing at the edge of the water was a man frowning down at a cell phone. As Rufus watched, he took a sheaf of papers out of his jacket, and set off through the wreckage.

Oh, this couldn't be good.

"Uh, be right back," Rufus told the puzzled captain as he leapt to the edge of the quay. He timed it poorly against the swells and nearly fell into the frigid January water. He scrambled to his feet and followed the guy.

The Rittenhouse agent turned the corner of a building that had escaped destruction. Rufus skulked behind, trying not to be obvious to the agent  _or_ to anyone else, though everyone else was probably busy with the rescue. The agent was heading away from the worst of the devastation. That made sense. If he wanted to plant something that incriminated anarchists, he'd want to be sure it was found, not buried in molasses.

Rufus… Rufus had a gun. He had the gun he'd taken off the other Rittengoon. But— he— he  _couldn't_ shoot a guy in the back. He didn't think so, anyway. Han at least had been  _facing_ Greedo, and they'd each had a gun out.

Besides, he was a terrible shot. He didn't even know if he could hit the guy from this distance.

He turned another corner of the building. What was he going to do when he caught up with the agent? Should he have gone for Wyatt instead? But if he lost sight of this guy, they'd probably never find him again. They might go back to a world where air was privatized.

He heard another shot in the distance. Rittenhouse? Or the cops putting down more horses? He followed the guy around—

Wait, were they going in a circle?

He turned the corner, called himself three kinds of idiot, and slowly raised his hands as the Rittenhouse agent leveled a gun at him.

"You know, headquarters wants you alive," he said, in a faint New York accent. "But you're pretty slippery, and I'm thinking they'd rather have you dead than escaped. Especially if it means those others are stuck here."

Rufus's mind raced, trying to find a way out of this. All he could think of was,  _I didn't tell Jiya I loved her this morning_ .

The agent raised an eyebrow, and—

Flew through the air, propelled by a jet of water, to slam into a pile of debris.

Rufus was so stunned, it took him a second to recover. Then he ran— not  _away_ like he wanted, like would be reasonable, but  _forward_ , because Rittenhouse was still trying to change history. He got lucky: the guy had dropped the gun. Rufus scooped it up, and held it on him as he lay motionless in the rubble. 

The debris blocked them from sight. Rufus hesitated. Then he reached inside the guy's coat. He found his phone, and the sheaf of papers. He hesitated again, and checked for a pulse. He didn't find one— oh— there.

He searched the guy's other pockets, found nothing, and backed away. When he was a safe distance away, he glanced towards the water. The old captain still had the pump pointed in his direction, and was watching Rufus anxiously. Rufus gave him a wave, startled and relieved. Well, at least they knew it worked.

He glanced through the papers: looked like anarchist propaganda. He stuck them and the gun in his jacket, and ran back to the boat.

"Thank you," he said, when he got to the edge of the quay. " _Thank you_ ."

The old man shrugged it off. "Don't know you, but you fixed the pumps. Couldn't just let him shoot you."

"Well." Rufus wasn't sure what to say to that pragmatism. But he was really, really,  _really_ glad not to be dead.

"You know 'im?" the captain added.

Rufus shook his head. "No," he said honestly. "I've never seen him before in my life."

The old man scratched his head. "No telling what these foreigners are gonna do next," he said finally, in the tone of someone who's finally solved a puzzle.

Geez. Okay. But Rufus honestly had bigger problems than changing the opinions of one old man in 1919. "Can you take us closer, please?" he asked. "We can, uh, find your crew?"

The old man gave him one crisp nod, and took the wheel. The boat pulled away from the stone quay. Rufus tried not to fidget with impatience.

"You married?" the captain asked, as he maneuvered them through what felt like the world's longest nineteen-point turn. But it was the rear pump that was out of commission, and this was faster than going out to the harbor and turning around… right?

"What?" Rufus said, startled. "Uh, no. I'm not. Married." He paused. "I, um, I have a girlf—" He bit off the rest of that anachronism. "I have a girl," he tried again. "But we're not married." He glanced sideways. Had he just said something shocking?

"Yet," he added for good measure.

It was a revelation that that word didn't feel like part of his cover.

The captain grunted. "You got any family here?"

Oh. Now Rufus knew where this was going. "Out in that? No," he said gently. "You?"

"Son's a teamster," he said gruffly. "Down this end of the city, a lot. Dunno where he was today."

Rufus wasn't sure what to say. Twenty-one dead, in their old timeline, and what had happened here? And how much discipline did it have to take, for this old man to stay at his post in case he was needed, instead of tearing the whole disaster area apart looking for his son?

"I hope, uh," he said, "I hope he's okay."

The man grunted again, and clearly didn't want to talk about it.

They floated gently to where the dockyard met the water. Rufus could immediately see trouble up ahead. Two or three carts were stuck near the wreckage of the L, whether tangled in the downed steel or just literally  _stuck_ , Rufus couldn't tell. The horses were struggling, their panic only getting them mired deeper. A lot of people were swarming— a  _lot_ of people, actually— then Rufus saw the kids stuck on the other side. And the red cross painted on one of the carts. Kids  _and_ relief supplies, great.

He saw Wyatt, at the front of a line of men handing kids away from the crash, and that might've been Lucy, too. But whatever was happening, it seemed to be getting worse. If one of those horses actually went down—

Right now there were a lot of people in the way, and if any of them could move— he turned to the captain. "Is there, like, a horn on this thing?"

The man's chest swelled, like Rufus had secretly discovered his favorite part of the job. He reached up to a rope near his head and—

Oh  _God_ that was loud.

People at the scene of the wreck jumped and looked. Rufus took his hands off his ears. He saw Wyatt waving people back, and then his line of fire was clear.

Rufus opened the pump, and tried not to hear,  _point it at the deck! Point it at the deck!_ Because that would make either him or the captain slave Leia in this analogy, and—

The brine arced through the air and hit the ground a few feet from the horses. Rufus secretly cheered.

Men darted in again, grabbing the horses' bridles, calming them— and then, a minute or two later, leading the first one away from the carts as the water scoured enough of the molasses away that they could move. Rufus cheered out loud this time. The captain gave him a strange look.

Wyatt reappeared from the tangle of people, and waved with both arms, towards himself. He wanted the water closer? Rufus gently adjusted the angle of the pump—

The water nearly hit Wyatt in the face. Ooops. Rufus nudged it a little to the right. Even from this distance he could see how still Wyatt had gone, and could easily imagine the Look on his face. Hey,  _Wyatt_ could always come out here and try this.

Then Wyatt nodded and gave Rufus a double thumbs up, and melted back into the crowd. Rufus kept going, trying to direct the water to scour as much of the molasses away as possible without actually turning the full force of a fireboat pump on, you know, people and animals.

And it worked.  _It worked_ . They'd led all the horses away, handed the kids out of the cart, and managed to right the cart by the time a familiar-looking team of firefighters jogged towards the boat.

"You actually got it working," called the firefighter Rufus had talked to earlier as he boarded.

_Obviously_ was probably a response that would get Rufus in a lot of trouble. He stuck with "Yep." Then elaborated: "Both front pumps work. Not sure about the rear one."

"Now that we know the brine actually cuts that damned stuff, we'll get more pumps in," the firefighter said.

Now that it was working, Rufus could get the hell off this boat. But when he turned to go, the captain solemnly held out his hand. Rufus hesitated, then shook it.

"Good luck finding your son," he said quietly.

He picked his way across the hardened molasses to the remnants of the five-cart pileup. Wyatt and Lucy were on the outskirts of the lingering crowd, Wyatt's hands on her shoulders. As Rufus got closer, he could see that Wyatt's face was serious, and Lucy's eyes were huge, her face pale.

"Okay?" Wyatt said, as Rufus got within earshot. They weren't talking loudly.

Lucy nodded. She was shaking.

"Hey," Rufus said. "You okay?"

Wyatt gave him a sharp look. What? He wasn't a mindreader.

Lucy wiped her eyes. Uh-oh. "I'm fine," she said. "They needed someone to climb in the overturned carriage and get the kids out, and I was the smallest, and I had a…" She took a ragged breath, and then carried on in that patented everything's-just-fine voice. "A bit of a panic attack, that's all. I'm… I'm fine."

"You—" Rufus glanced warily at Wyatt first. "Get the kids out?"

Lucy nodded, sniffled, and took a more even breath.

"Well, then that makes you a certified badass."

Lucy managed a weak smile.

Rufus's first impulse was to hug her, and then he remembered when they were. "I would definitely give you a hug, except…" He glanced around. "I'll owe you one when we're back in a time less populated by bigots."

This smile was more genuine. "Thanks, Rufus."

Rufus glanced around. "This was definitely a disaster, just like in our timeline. And, I intercepted a Rittenhouse agent and stole his anarchist propaganda." He briefly told them, and showed them. "So does that mean we can go home? 'Cause, I have molasses in places I don't want to think about." He looked pointedly at Wyatt and Lucy, who were somehow, improbably, less covered.

Lucy looked around, and took one more deep breath. "Wyatt stopped their other guy from leaving the remains of a bomb. I don't think there's anything else we can do here. I heard people talking. USIA doesn't have the best reputation around here, and a bunch of people said it was only a matter of time."

"Great," Wyatt said. "Let's go."

"If Flynn's not back at the Lifeboat, we'll look until we find him," Lucy added, as they headed away from the epicenter of the destruction.

"Right," Wyatt muttered. "We'll look for him."

Lucy stopped. "We're not leaving anyone in the past if we can possibly help it." Her voice and her posture were steely.

Wyatt stopped, and looked at Lucy, who'd nearly stranded herself in the past forever to stop Rittenhouse, and actually looked abashed. "No," he said. "Of course not."

They had to walk a while to get back to the Lifeboat. His own generous coating of molasses ruled out using public transportation, and Rufus always liked to park away from their main destination. If something ever happened to it— like, saying, having it carried away by a thirty-foot wall of molasses— well, they were screwed. And even if nothing happened to it that way, if Rittenhouse was smart, they'd have people searching for the Lifeboat. They knew what Flynn had done to strand the team in 1754, after all. Just another thing to thank Flynn for.

"Hey," Rufus told Lucy quietly. "I'm… sorry I left you behind, before."

Wyatt looked between the two of them. Lucy looked at Rufus and said, "I told you to."

"Yeah, I know."

"It was the right thing to do, Rufus. We couldn't take them on our own."

"I know," Rufus said again. "It's just… sometimes the right thing really sucks."

Lucy gave him a sympathetic, sad smile. "I know," she said softly, voice and face shadowed.

They finally reached the wooded area where they'd hidden the Lifeboat. Rufus thought they'd gotten there unobserved—

— until something huge and dark moved in the shadows near the time machine.

Wyatt was instantly in front of them, gun drawn. Rufus grabbed Lucy's arm and tugged her towards the ground.

"Whoa there, Rambo." Flynn's acid accents were instantly recognizable.

Slowly, Wyatt lowered his gun. Only then did Flynn step out of the shadows—

So, uh. That hadn't been a trick of the light. He really  _did_ look like Tar Man, except with molasses. He'd lost his original clothes somewhere, and was wearing a priest robe, which was both  _wildly_ inappropriate and comically short. The visible parts of his legs, feet, arms, neck, and face were covered with dried molasses, and it had clearly gotten in his hair, too. Overall… yeah, no, not so much Tar Man as, like, Mephistopheles.

"Oh my God," Lucy said. "Are you all right?"

" _Peachy_ ," Flynn snapped.

Wyatt raised an eyebrow. "You actually, uh, accomplish anything?"

Flynn looked at him. "You mean besides figure out that Rittenhouse's plan was to blame the anarchists before you did? Killed three Rittenhouse goons. Oh, and saved Lucy and Rufus."

"I told you about that," Lucy reminded Wyatt.

"Oh, right," Wyatt said, in a totally unconvincing now-I-remember voice. Lucy rolled her eyes.

Not that Rufus didn't get Wyatt's hostility, he totally did, but sometimes he wished those two would just whip it out and measure already, and spare the rest of them.

His brain chose an uncomfortable time to remind him of all the times Flynn had saved his life lately.

_Yeah, but they were all in the past. He just doesn't want to get stranded_ .  _That's all it is._

He shook his head, trying to shrug off that whole confusing line of thought, and climbed into the Lifeboat. "Mothership's in the past," he reported after a moment. "Let's go home."

#

Rufus was still powering down the Lifeboat when Flynn lunged for the hatch and hauled himself out, leaving little bits of dried molasses in his wake. 

Rufus looked at the seat, and just shook his head. Chances of the murder man actually coming back to clean it up? Yeah, Rufus knew who was gonna be taking care of that, damn it.

"What happened?" Agent Christopher asked, as the three of them climbed tiredly down. Just like the old days, in a weird way.

"Do we still have class-action lawsuits?" Lucy tried to push her hair out of her face, and winced. It looked matted.

"Yes…"

"Great."

Jiya came over, kissed Rufus, licked her lips, frowned, and gave him a once-over that managed to say  _a lot_ .

"Ogden still ruled against USIA," Lucy said, skimming quickly on a tablet.

"Oh, ah," Connor began, as bits of molasses flaked out of her hair and her fingers stuck to the screen.

"Looks like the precedent is intact," Lucy finished.

"So, you preserved history," Agent Christopher said.

"Yeah, at the cost of letting a bunch of people die," Wyatt muttered. "And, look, you can both—" He glanced between Lucy and Agent Christopher. "— skip the motivational speech about how many more died in the original timeline, or would've died without the court case, or whatever, okay?" He gave them all a Look, started to say something, and then just headed off to the bedroom he was sharing with Jessica.

"It was… it was pretty bad," Lucy explained, as Agent Christopher frowned after Wyatt.

"It was a disaster," Rufus muttered. "Literally. Picture a tsunami, but worse."

"It's one of those things where pictures don't do it justice," Lucy said quietly. "Not until you get there and you see the thing  _looming_ over the neighborhood…" She shook her head. "I honestly don't know what we could've done."

"You stopped Rittenhouse and you made it home," Agent Christopher said firmly. "I know it's hard. But count it as a win."

Lucy watched her for a moment, not agreeing, not disagreeing either, then turned back to the tablet.

"Hey," Rufus said, when Connor got Agent Christopher's attention for something.

Lucy looked up.

"I owe you something." Rufus carefully reached forward and put his arms around Lucy. She took a deep breath, and hugged him back fiercely. Lucy gave good hugs. She pulled back and gave him a warm smile. She looked a little less wan, and he felt a little less unsettled.

"So," Rufus told Jiya, when Lucy had turned back to her tablet. "Wanna help me… get the molasses off?"

She looked at him, amused. "That sounded a lot smoother in your head, didn't it."

"Yeah," Rufus sighed.

They heard the bathroom door slam closed. Rufus sighed again. Maybe Flynn needed it worse than any of them, but Rufus still didn't feel very charitable towards him, and he just  _knew_ Flynn wasn't gonna leave them any hot water. Scrubbing molasses off in a cold shower. Yay.

"Rufus?" Lucy was studying the tablet with kind of a strange look on her face.

"What?"

"You saved a bunch of people. Six men who… who died in the old timeline. They survived. In fact, they  _testified_ ."

"That's… good?" Why did she think that was strange? That was the whole reason she'd sent him to the paving yard.

It felt good to hear, though.

"But did you see the kids there?"

"Kids? No, what kids?"

"Maria Distasio and Pasquale Iantosca." Lucy looked somber. At Rufus's look, she added, "They were both ten. So I always… so I always remembered them."

Ten. Shit. "What happened?"

"I'm not sure. In the old timeline, they were collecting firewood right under the tank when it burst—"

Rufus winced.

"— so maybe all the activity scared them away. Whatever happened," she added after a minute. "They lived." She smiled, tentatively, but a real smile.

Well, at least… jeez. He wasn't sure if he was an asshole for thinking of two kids surviving a terrible disaster as "some consolation," or had just had it up to here with all the stuff they had to do.

Agent Christopher got Lucy's attention to ask about some detail. Rufus glanced at the tablet Lucy had just put down, and hesitated, curious. He searched for Maria Distasio's name; adding "Boston molasses" got him to an interview the  _Globe_ had done with her on the 70 th anniversary of the spill.

_No, I'll never forget. We were collecting sticks under the tank_ , she'd said.  _Pasqualeno and Tony and me. Then a big man come up to me and give me a nickel and tells me to go buy the firewood. I'd never had a nickel before. I run home to give it to my mother, and the boys come with me, and that's when the tank bursts._

_The noise startled me, and I tripped and fell. I was too close. Thought I would die. But the man was there, and he grabbed me and held me up out of the flood. Hit him hard, but he never let go, and he left me on our front step._

_Did the man tell you his name?_ the reporter asked.

_No_ .  _Just said he'd had a daughter who would've been my age if she'd lived._

The article went on to cover her testimony at the trial. USIA's lead lawyer had apparently balked at having kids on the stand, and—  _of course_ — tried to discredit her reliability by not so subtly attacking her intelligence and her command of the English language. But she'd told about how the neighborhood kids would collect pails of leaking molasses from the tank, all the time, and her matter-of-fact description of this as a totally normal thing had been really damaging. There wasn't much else, but her obituary told him Maria's granddaughter was a well-known civil rights lawyer.

So they'd altered the timeline enough that some bystander had gotten the kids to safety? Rufus didn't always understand all the ways that history changed— which made sense, it was stochastic, not deterministic— but he was still glad these two ten-year-olds had lived.

The bathroom door slammed again. Rufus looked up as Flynn, now clean and, you know, wearing pants, stalked down the hallway towards his bedroom. Huh. Maybe there was some hot water left after all.

Jiya leaned over and put her chin on Rufus's shoulder. "Oooh." She sounded like she'd immediately regretted that.

"Yeah, we should probably just… burn all these clothes."

"Is that you?" She pointed to one photo. "Go back."

"Oh— yeah." He read the caption, and winced. Good old 1919 racial sensibilities, and by "good," he meant, "ugh."

Jiya turned her head and kissed his neck. "Yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes, I'll help you get the molasses off."

He put the tablet down and turned his head to kiss her mouth. This day was finally getting better.

He hadn't forgotten what had gone through his head when the Rittenguy had him at gunpoint. He just thought Jiya might appreciate it more if he didn't slime her with molasses in the process of telling her. But once they were clean…

Wyatt came out of his bedroom holding a stack of clothes when they were on their way to the bathroom, their own towels and clean clothes in hand. Rufus wasn't sure  _what_ face Jiya made, exactly, but whatever it was, Wyatt just kind of sighed. 

"Hey, leave some hot water for the rest of us, will you?" Wyatt muttered.

Rufus gave Wyatt's nearly molasses-free clothes a pointed look as Jiya slipped her hand into his. "Do my best, man."

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from the testimony of Charles Caffrey, a stableman, at the inquiry. He was describing the sound the molasses tank made, not on the day of the explosion, but in general.
> 
> This detail, and much of the background for this story, came from Stephen Puleo’s _Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919_ , which gives an in-depth account of the disaster, what led up to it, and the inquiry, as well as fascinatingly situates it in the broader political context.
> 
> I’ve tried to be true to the historical narrative. I did take a few liberties with where things happened in the immediate vicinity of the waterfront, and with the details of the fireboat, because I couldn’t find solid information on fireboats of the time. It’s also not clear how many people died immediately, and how many died slowly. Contemporary news coverage mentioned people trapped. We know of one man who suffocated hours after the spill, but in that case we know because others were with him. Other than that, everything is as accurate as I could make it.


End file.
